


Chambers of Glass

by albatrost



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Arumika Week 2019, Day 1: Stay With Me, Drabble, F/M, Post-Canon, canonverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-10-26 07:14:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20738315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/albatrost/pseuds/albatrost
Summary: She caught herself yearning and dreaming of a place so much hungrier for her quick pulse than her aching hollow ribs.Found that place in him, in the years they had.Short drabble for Arumika Week, Day 1: Stay With Me





	Chambers of Glass

While she was away, he thought about her.

About wet black eyes in white sunshine.

About ducking away into a thicket of trees as children, the three of them, thistle and foxglove rustling against their clothes. About how the canopy of leaves dappled darkness across her face, and how her eyes still seemed so bright, even in shadow.

About how they crinkled at the corners when she smiled, awe and curiosity and embarrassment melding together, when she had first stumbled into the waves. When she had grinned, rose smattering her cheeks, for what felt like the first time in years. 

He realized he hadn’t known Mikasa before she had lost her parents. Realized he’d never seen her grin like that before.

About how they’d smiled at each other, in bliss and blinding sun, hearts light enough to soar—while Eren looked past the wide swaths of saltwater, past them. Stared into a bright blue horizon and dreamed of an ends-means drenched in red.

About how every time, when Eren inevitably drifted away from them again—inevitably left them behind—the two of them had been together, through the worst and best of their lives. Eren had left them behind for good, now—with Armin hot on his heels—and this was the first time _she_ had been the one who couldn’t bear to stay. Armin had been one of the people who had urged her to leave—to reconnect with a land and people and culture she’d never known, to explore everything Hizuru was eager to offer her—wanted her to have something permanent and tangible, something that would last longer than Eren or him—but he wasn’t prepared for the hollowness she left. Wasn’t prepared for how he’d miss her. Wasn’t prepared to be poring over the same letter for hours at a time, rereading the ink-scrawled words until his eyes went fuzzy.

They celebrated when she returned, and he remembered a rich swallow of wine—how that warmth frothed feather-light through his veins. A heady laugh and a spinning ceiling and a clumsy tumble of words that ended in just the two of them, sitting shoulder to shoulder against the wall.

And it was late, but when the conversation lulled and he shifted to stand, she curled her fingers weakly around his wrist.

_“Stay with me.”_

Her fingers wrapped around the side of his neck, smoothed deep under the flesh, soft as the cold light of a low scarlet sun. He was helpless to lean into it, into her. To bend into this red-blooded peace. Into something almost inevitable. There was something pained in how she kissed him—something as impatient as it was regretful for the time spent grieving, something voracious in vain for lost time. He wasn’t sure what to say, so he didn’t—let her stain his throat red with kisses instead—and it was hard to say whether the guilty party was her wine-darkened lips or the desperate pressure behind them. Either way, he didn’t mind.

Weeks later, one day in his study, she showed him how she had learned to fold a crane when she was abroad—had torn the paper clean and tucked away the edges, folded and flipped. Pressed her fingertip in a firm stroke across a crease in the paper. Built dimension and sharpness and beauty from nothingness.

She folded her body against his, into his, in much the same way—in delicate and careful and deliberate strokes, in patience, in fingers sweeping smooth and crisp over creases and edges. Sculpting some formless thing together, letting it build until their bodies beaded with brine, until their touches trembled—all just to split those seams and tumble loose again. The final product, unrepressed—not structure but collapse. 

Yet it was never a collapse back into nothingness. Some things were lost in the decomposition—the both of them breathless and boneless and bashless, in the end—but they molded something anew from the decay.

Something warm, and bright. Something that clenched hard in her jaw and squeezed tight in her chest that she wasn’t sure how to say.

Something she never had to, because she was transparent to him, like always.

Crystalline heart, four crafted chambers of glass—clear and sparkling panes he could peer right through. A heart she was eager to send away, sometimes, for all the grief it had borne her. Caught herself yearning and dreaming of a place so much hungrier for her quick pulse than her aching hollow ribs.

Found that place in him, in the years they had.

Found it in cups of tea and grateful smiles, in lazy mornings and early drills. Found it in the feather-light brush of lips on her cheek, in the thumb sweeping over her knuckles. Found it in the crinkle of paper when he pored through stratagems at his desk—drew a hand up over his mouth to stifle a yawn—and bobbed his head blearily until she convinced him to come to bed. Found it in changing leaves and frostnipped noses and spring warmth again, and again, and again, leaching the winter chill from the marrow of her bones. Found it in helpless laughter. Found it in scalding sunshine and picnics in the sand, in deep breaths of briny air—in the sway of a ship helm and the excitement in his eyes, in fresh new worlds and open skies. Found it in laundry days, basket propped on her hip as she watched him snap clothespins onto the line, as she watched the sun and wind whip his hair, catching gold. Found it in ripe red tomatoes, plucked from the garden vine as she hummed a song to herself—and found it when they blistered in the pan, burst open, rich and bright with flavor. Found it when she felt she might burst herself, heart swelling tight in her chest when she lay flush against him, listening to soft snores.

Found it in fond gazes and midday naps and holidays and sore muscles and drowsy kisses and tangled sheets and familiar stories and worn book covers. Found it in thankfulness.

They lay in a rosy tangle of limbs after daybreak, fate thrumming rich through his blood, threaded through his veins. The lifetimes of those who came before him had long since twined their roots into his mind, but they grappled onto his body next—prying and grasping and peeling the vitality from him, sinking teeth into the immortal fruit of their sacrifice. Leaching his strength away on the paths, weaving wiry back to that moment. The moment that Ymir Fritz was gifted the grotesque glory of the gods of death. The moment all of them were forsaken for a tiny taste of divinity.

The moment that promises him the end of his life.

_“Stay with me.”_

Her voice breaks over the shell of his ear like a wave crest over jagged rock, splashes into helpless froth and foam when she sucks in a shaky breath, washes back up into a roiling sea.

They both know it’s an order he can’t follow this time, but he tries anyways.

Takes her hand and swallows around the rust and salt of blood in his throat. Squeezes even when he feels too weak to, and smiles at her.

Stays in her arms as long as he can.

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is shorter (and sadder) than I wanted it to be, but I wanted to be able to post something on the first day of Arumika Week to kick off! I feel like it wasn't much, but I hope y'all enjoyed!
> 
> Thank you so much for reading. ♡ Arumika Week starts today, so if you're a fan of the ship, you're in luck! Keep your eyes peeled for all of the wonderful content that this immensely talented fandom is coming out with, and ty again!


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